City decides to open up financial task force meetings

Denver’s Chief Financial Officer Claude Pumilia announced today the city will open up the meetings of a special financial task force convened to help find ways to fix the city’s structural budget problems.

“We want to make this open, starting in April,” said Pumilia this morning in the City Council’s general government & finance committee meeting.

The city had decided to close the meeting to allow the 21 community, business and civic leaders chosen for the mayor’s task force to have freedom to discuss ideas without public scrutiny.

Last week an attorney for The Denver Post sent a letter to the city arguing that the meetings should be open under the state’s open meetings law.

The city said it operates under its own meetings law and did not have to allow the public into the meetings and the committee was not a “formally constituted” public body.

Nevertheless, Pumilia said some committee members had agreed to open up the meetings, and he expects some members may excuse themselves from the committee because they are now open.

Councilman Charlie Brown said some meetings may still have to close to allow committee members the freedom to talk. He also said the members should have to sign an attendance sheet, which will ensure that they will take it seriously and not send representatives to the meetings.

Pumilia said all of the members seemed to be taking the meetings seriously.

“They don’t intend to shirk their responsibilities,” he said. “We have a group of committee members who are responsible adults who don’t need to do attendance.”

The intent of the committee was to engage the city’s top business minds to figure out what to do about a long-term structural imbalance in the city budget’s operating revenues and expenditures. If the city does nothing to fix the structural problem, the city will face a $500 million budget gap in the coming years.

Lynn Bartels thinks politics is like sports but without the big salaries and protective cups. The Washington Post's "The Fix" blog has named her one of Colorado's best political reporters and tweeters.

Joey Bunch has been a reporter for 28 years, including the last 12 at The Denver Post. For various newspapers he has covered the environment, water issues, politics, civil rights, sports and the casino industry.